Love Across Lifetimes

Rose is shaking with anger. She isn’t sure what Minos is using to make Justin go insane, but she has to stop it. The Helm of Darkness did so damage to his mind last time, she worries that this time it won’t take as much to make him worse. “What in the name of the Gods are you doing to him?” She asks, her voice shaking. “Oh, I’m just testing out this new item of power that I have created. The Staff of Disorder, I made it to replace Hades’ Helm of Darkness. What do you think about it young demigod?” Minos has an evil grin on his face. He is enjoying this, he likes causing this pain. Rose can’t believe it. She squeezes Justin even tighter. She whispers into his ear, “Don’t you quit on me Barnacle Brain. Hold on for a bit, I promise this bastard will pay.” She sets him down softly, turning to Charley. “Watch him, no one touches him. Got it?” He nods to her with a determined look on his face. “You got it Rose. I’ll kill anyone who tries.” She is grateful for his courage and his determination. But right now, all she needs is a vanished ghost king. Her anger is to an all new level, she wasn’t even this mad with Kate. “Minos, release him. Now, or I will swear to all the Gods that you will regret every second that you hold him like this.” “You have no power over me little girl. I am a ghost, your celestial bronze will do nothing against me. Not only that, but you are weak. I know you, child of Athena. You have no powers like the rest of your friends. I know the fear in your heart, you always feel insignificant to your friends. You don’t have any power over water, electricity, gems, or even words. All you have is your own self, it will take a lot more power than that to beat me.” Rose’s mind immediately went to the owl charm that is on her wrist. Before, she didn’t want to take the charm off, she was worried about what others would think about her. But now, with Justin in the danger that he’s in, she couldn’t care less. “You’d do well to be fear me Minos. There is more to me than what people know. I have more power in my little finger than any of my friends have in their whole bodies combined. I have drank from the breast of Athena as an infant, more than Heracles had. I am closer to a God than you can ever hope to be.” The grin that had been on the Ghost king’s face suddenly disappeared, “You lie, I sense no extra power in you. You are just a regular demigod.” “Think again,” She grabbed the owl charm and ripped it off of her bracelet. She suddenly felt that surge of energy that signals the release of her hidden power. She feels edgy, and ready to fight. She wants to strangle Minos with her bare hands, and with her hidden power now out, she knew that she could. “Now do as I said and release him, before I make you release him.” Minos readjusts himself in the throne, “If you can beat my personal guards, I will release your boyfriend.” Rose looks at the monsters coming at her. Zombies, Laistrygonian Giants, Dracaenae and Telekhines. She could draw her sword and take them all out easily, but no, she needs to get rid of the monstrous rage that is building up inside of her. She is going to take out each and every one of these monsters with her bare hands. “Grace, take my blade, I’m not going to be needing it for this fight.” “Rose, are you sure? There are a lot of monsters out there, you might need it.” Grace looks worried, “You may be strong, but are you sure you can do this?” Rose chuckles, and holds out her sword toward her friend. “Grace, you have no idea. Take my blade.” She hesitantly takes the sword and backs away. Rose turns around to face the monster horde in front of her. “Now,” she says, cracking her knuckles. “Who’s up first?” Three Laistrygonian Giants charge her, swinging clubs and chains. She charges right toward them. When the first giant swings his chain at her, she grabs it an inch from her face and pulls the giant toward her. He flies at her with a look of horror on his face, not understanding where this small girl was getting her immense strength from. When he gets close to Rose, she smashes his face in with her left hook, instantly pulverizing him into golden dust. Immediately she jumps out of the way of a giant club coming down where she stood. She kicks the club, shattering it in half. She jumps on top of the giant and kicks him down impaling him down on the broken club. She leaps off of his body before he turns to dust. The last giant turns to the other monsters, looking for help. The four dracaenae look at each other and charge at Rose. She jumps up in the air and she kicks the first dracaenae into the last giant, sending them flying. The next dracaenae that came at her, thrusts its spear right at Rose’s heart. Rose immediately grabs the spear end and breaks the spear head off and throws it at the fourth Dracaenae. It is thrown so hard that the spear head goes completely through her and imbeds itself a few inches away from Minos’ face in the throne. With the shaft of the broken spear she hits the dracaenae who was holding it, sending her back a few feet. She then swung the staff at the monster’s head and broke the shaft over the monster’s head. She hit the monster’s head so hard that it flew off. The head and body immediately turns to dust. The last giant and dracaenae charge rose together, both wielding clubs. The giant swings his club at Rose, but at the last second she ducks down, causing the giant to swing his club into the dracaenae causing her to turn to dust. Rose stood up and jumped up on the giants back, grabbing onto his shoulders. She grabbed him by his head and twisted it, breaking his neck. She jumped down and turned to the five telekhines and smirked. “Any other victims?” Rose asked. The telekhines start shaking and immediately drop their spears and swords. As they try to run away, they fall down to the ground shrieking and grabbing their heads. “Cowards! You dare call yourselves a part of my guard?!” Minos yells in fury. He gets up from the throne and goes over to the disposed telekhines and smash them with his staff one at a time. “Now that I have disposed of your personal guard, release Justin,” Rose said. Her anger was still welling up inside of her chest. She still wanted to strangle Minos for the pain she is causing her best friend. “Oh, but you didn’t dispose of all of them by yourself. I had to destroy the telekhines, yes you frightened them, but I destroyed them.” Rose’s anger seemed to triple, “You dare go back on your word? After you see the destruction that I can cause? You are not very wise, you will regret your decision Minos.” “You are a mortal, you cannot harm me. If you try to touch me, you will pass through me.” Minos has his grin back. He turns to the zombies behind him, “Leave none of them alive.” The zombie army started to charge toward Rose’s friends. At first Rose runs toward Justin to protect him. But all of her friends were circled around him and protecting him. She needs her weapon now. “Grace! Blade!” Grace tosses Rose her sword and as soon as the sword reaches her, she throws the sheath away. She won’t be needing it. I have to get to Minos and destroy that staff. She takes off running toward him and immediately runs into zombie warriors. She slashes left and right, beating all the zombies near her. As soon as those fell, another wave came at her. It seemed as if the zombie warriors would never end. But she kept pushing her way towards Minos, inch by inch. Finally after all of the zombies get out of the way she is face to face with Minos. She slashes her blade through Minos, cutting him in half. Or, it should have cut him in half. It passed through him, leaving him completely unharmed. Minos laughs, “I told you, celestial bronze weapons do not effect me.” Rose reaches up and grabs hold of his neck. She wasn’t sure if it would work, but she had to try something. To her surprise, it actually worked. She has Minos by the throat. “What?! How?!” Minos tries to yell. “Now, release Justin, or else I will rip whatever throat you have out.” He tries resisting, but he can’t find any way out of Rose’s vice grip. The more he resists, the tighter Rose’s grip became. “Alright! Alright!” His scepter stops glowing, and the air around the room suddenly becomes calmer. Rose turns around to look at Justin. He seemed to be coming out of his nightmare. He looked at Rose, eyes clearing up slightly. He looked to be okay. The rest of the group appears to be okay as well. A little roughed up from the fighting, but still in one piece. “There! Your friend is free, now let me go!” Minos yells. “Why should I? You are trying to take over the Underworld, and after that, the mortal world. I could rid every one of you for good.” “If you destroy me, then who will judge the dead? You know that Hades needs someone to judge the dead. I’ve seen every soul that has come in and out of this world. I have even judged you six.” With that, Rose drops Minos. “What did you say?” “Yes, young demigod, I judged each and every one of your souls in past lives. This is your third life for each and every one of you,” Minos says, rubbing his ghostly neck. “You wouldn’t want to anger me now would you? You might miss out on your chance for the Isles of the Blessed with your loved ones. Would you like to spend the rest of eternity in the Fields of Punishment?” Rose and her friends all fall silent. All heads are turned toward Minos now. “You’re bluffing!” Rose yells. “No, I am speaking with complete honesty, I swear on the River Styx that I am speaking the truth about your past lives.” Rose’s ears are ringing, she can’t believe what she is hearing. What if I destroy him though? If I kill a ghost, he can’t judge us. But what if he just comes back again, then we would be put into the Fields of Punishment. “It appears that you are in a bit of a bind aren’t you?” Minos says chuckling. “You have no choice but to let me reign. As long as I am as powerful as the gods, no one will dare oppose me!” His staff starts glowing again. That’s it! That staff is the source of his power, if I destroy it, then Hades will be able to come back and banish Minos for good! Rose lunges toward the staff and grabs it. She tries to tear it away from the ghost, but his grip is surprisingly strong for someone without a body. The longer that she holds onto the staff, the more her head starts to hurt. “Fool! You can’t hold my staff! If you try, you will be driven insane, you will live out all your fears,” Minos says while fighting Rose. Rose can feel her mind starting to stretch towards its limits. She sees flashes of Justin and her other friends laying on a floor, bloodied and dead. She sees Camp Half Blood and Camp Jupiter destroyed. Everyone laying on the ground, mass destruction has torn the camps apart. NO! I refuse to let that happen to my homes! With one last great effort, she pulls with every muscle in her body. Pulling the Staff of Disorder away from Minos and when it is out of his hands, she lets it fly into the wall. As soon as the staff makes contact with the obsidian wall it shatters. All the zombies stop what they are doing and fall to the ground. The air starts to clear and feels less threatening. “No! What have you done?!” Minos goes to the pieces of his staff, trying to put the pieces back together, but to no avail. “You demigods will never reach Elysium, ever! As soon as you die, I will send you to the Fields of Punishment! You will never rest in peace!” Rose gets ready to fight the ghost again, but all of a sudden a presence enters the room. “Not if I have any say in the matter Minos,” the voice seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. “You have over stepped your boundaries, and for that, you will be the one punished, not these young heroes.” “My lord Hades,” Minos says, falling to the floor in a groveling manner. “I beg your forgiveness, I only acted in your best interest. I did not want anyone to come into your palace and try and take over!” All of a sudden, the area right in front of Minos became hot. Rose knew what that meant, “Everyone close your eyes now!” She knows that Hades is going to be arriving very soon. She no sooner gets her own eyes closed before she feels the supernova which signals the arrival of the God. “Do not lie to a God, I know your true intentions Minos. I was lenient with you when you died the first time. You should have received the Fields of Asphodel. I will not be so kind to you with this punishment.” “My lord, I apologize, I agree, Asphodel is what I deserve. I have disrespected you and I am ashamed of my actions.” “No…” Hades said. His voice is harsh and cold. “You don’t deserve that. You deserve the worst punishment that I can think of. One that a child of mine, Nico di Angelo, used on a demigod many years ago. You are going to die, but so is your soul. No one will remember you, no one will ever have to worry about what you might do if you raise again. You will exist in no way ever again. Minos has a look of pure terror on his face. “My Lord, I am sorry, please do not send me away. I will go to the Fields of Punishment! Please do not destroy my spirit!” He is down on his ghostly knees, pleading to the God of the dead. “Minos, Judge of the Underworld, I will be your judge in your trial for your soul. For the crime of treason and throwing a coupe, I find you guilty. Your punishment is to have your soul destroyed.” Hades holds his hand out, almost as if he is offering Minos a hand up. But as his hand is open, an essence seems to start going into his hand, like a vacuum sucking smoke into it. That’s when Rose realizes what is happening. Hades is absorbing the essence of Minos. Slowly, Minos starts to disappear until he is gone completely. Hades then turns around to the demigod group. “Thank you, young heroes. Even you son of Poseidon.” Rose turns around to see Justin being helped up by Charley. Her heart does a back flip seeing him alright. He and the rest of the group start walking up to Hades, who is now sitting in his throne. When Justin gets to the throne, he kneels down on one knee and says, “Lord Hades, I am sorry for the insults I said about you. I hope that this quest can make up for some of those slanders. I will work on making it up to you for as long as I must.” He looks up to the God of the Underworld in anticipation. Hades chuckles, “I dare not punish you anymore than I already have. It was because of you that I was absent from my domain in the first place.” “What do you mean?” Justin asks. He has a look of confusion on his face. As Rose looks around at the rest of her friends, everyone has the same look on their face as well. “Your father tricked me into going toward Alaska. He had me meet him in Canada and when I got there he trapped me in a magic net and took me to Alaska where we gods don’t have our power. It appears that you are his favorite child, and he did not take kindly to me driving you mad.” “I did not ask him to take any vengeance on you, I swear on the River Styx.” Justin is starting to look nervous now. “I know that, but I did take my punishment with the Helm of Darkness too far. I won’t apologize, but I am wise enough to know when to let an issue go. If it wasn’t for you, I would not be back in my palace right now. So I actually thank all six of you.” All six demigods bowed to Hades and thank him in return. But Rose has one more question. “My lord,” she begins. When he turns his attention to Rose, she says, “Minos said that he judged our last lives. He said this was each of our third lives, and that if we reached Elysium again that we would go to the Isles of the Blessed.” Hades nodded his head. “Yes, this is the truth. Usually demigods aren’t supposed to know what life they are on, it might change the way they live their lives. But this is an instant where it could not be helped. I cannot tell you who you were in your past lives, but I will say this. You all have defied all odds on what has happened with re-born demigods. When you get older and are closer to death, you will know what I mean.” Rose can’t believe it. Who was her past life? Was Justin’s soul with her in her past lives? What about the others? Who were her parents in the lives? Her head was spinning with questions. But she decides that she shouldn’t press the God of the dead much further. “So, I have a question,” Rose hears Gabe’s voice. “How are we supposed to get home now?” Rose had to admit that was a good question. It took them a week just to get here, is it going to take that long to get home? “I guess as a reward, I can transport you young children home. It’s the least I can do for you saving my domain.” He rubs his hands together, then holds them out. All of a sudden dark shadows appear at each of their feet. She looks up at the god. “Hope you don’t mind Shadow Travel.” With that, they all fall into darkness.

Notes